I am both the freelancer and the client. I have accumulated quite a bit of funds on my account as the freelancer and I am wondering if I can use them to pay other freelancers as a client. This should make sence now as Upwork charges 2.75% fee, which I can avoid and which I am sure Upwork does not keep (or at least does not keep bulk of it).

There are many Upwork users who have asked about this. It would indeed be a feature that many would welcome. But Upwork representatives have already discussed this many times in previous threads and have confirmed that this is not something they plan to do.

The barrier in place between freelancer funds and client funds is intentional and permanent on Upwork. It is not a technical issue or a matter of not having had enough time or resources to implement this functionality.

Up until 2013 (if I recall correctly) it was possible. There was only one financial account.

Then, one morning, we woke up and it was different.

Everyone who had both a freelancer- and a client account woke up to a $ 0 balance in their freelancer account as someone somewhere thought it would be a super-cute idea to put any balance on the "all together" account into the client side. Somehow it had been forgotten to inform all those freelancers (who had a balance and a client account and had hired in the previous 30 days) of that fact. So those people (including me) had no idea where their money had gone and no way of accessing it.